X-Men: Apocalypse

An obvious low point in the otherwise solid X-Men series, X-Men: Apocalypse follows the title characters as they band together to stop a seemingly omnipotent villain (Oscar Isaac’s Apocalypse) from destroying the world. There’s certainly a lot going on within X-Men: Apocalypse and yet very little of it manages to engross, as director Bryan Singer and scripter Simon Kinberg suffuse the proceedings with a host of subpar subplots – with the less-than-captivating atmosphere compounded by a handful of generic, one-note performances. (Actors like Nicholas Hoult, Sophie Turner, and even Jennifer Lawrence, as competent as they may be, are simply unable to infuse their now-iconic characters with the presence and gravitas one might’ve expected, although, in a rare exception, Michael Fassbender is typically excellent as the tortured Magneto.) It’s worth noting, however, that the movie does boast a handful of standout sequences, with the best and most obvious example of this a completely riveting interlude involving Quicksilver’s (Evan Peters) slow-motion rescue of several characters from a burning building. The needlessly overlong running time ensures that X-Men: Apocalypse pumps the breaks when it should be ramping up, as the film progresses into a meandering, wheel-spinning midsection that wreaks havoc on the already-tenuous momentum – with, in a far more problematic and disastrous turn of events, the narrative ultimately progressing to an overblown, CGI-heavy climax that could hardly be any less compelling/interesting (ie it just seems to go on and on and on). It’s ultimately rather disheartening to note that the X-Men series has finally succumbed to many of the problems that plague most comic-book adaptations (eg relentless action, incoherent special effects, etc), and it is, in the end, clear that the time has come to scrap the existing continuity in favor of something different and less frenetic.

** out of ****